Tag Archives: Islamic Center of Southern California

The first chapter of the Koran, Al Fatiha, is recited at the start of Muslim prayer rituals at five different times of the day for a total of 17 recitations daily. The Al Fatiha entreats Muslims to follow the straight path – obedience to Allah and his messenger Mohammed – and not the path of those who have angered Allah or gone astray. For centuries, revered Islamic scholars have interpreted this foundational surah of Islamic doctrine as referring to Jews and Christians: Jews as those angering Allah because they know the “truth” about Islam and knowingly reject it, and Christians as those gone astray because they are ignorant of Islam and therefore misguided. Thus, the idea of both Jews and Christians as having strayed from the “straight path” is reinforced daily and also in later verses of the Koran.

The significance Al Fatiha can’t be underestimated. According to Robert Spencer, an expert on Islam and author of 13 books on the subject, “Mohammed said that the Fatiha surpasses anything revealed by Allah.”

Given the damning inherent in this compulsory prayer and the active and historical enmity of Muslims toward them both, it is puzzling and even dangerous that both Jews and Christians today engage in many interfaith activities and forums with committed Muslims. Indeed, they often reject alliances with each other, even to the point of occasionally working at cross-purposes. In the face of the serious worldwide threat Islam poses to both religions, their failure to work together could eventually prove to be a fatal mistake.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council’s choice of location for its 12th Annual Convention on December 15 is telling: The All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, California. The group, founded by Muslim Brotherhood followers, says this is the “next step in its mission by crossing the interfaith line.” Yet again, the Islamists are taking advantage of naïve Christians with a desire to show off their tolerance.

The All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena started an Interfaith Study Group in 2007 with the Pasadena Jewish Temple and the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC), from which MPAC originated. The organization was founded as a branch of ICSC in 1986 and then became independent in 1988, though the two remain intertwined. The ICSC is proud of its interfaith successes. For example, the First United Methodist Church of Santa Monica is allowing the ICSC to hold Friday prayers there every week.

The story of MPAC begins with Hassan and Maher Hathout, the former of whom died in 2009. The brothers became active with the Muslim Brotherhood at an early age, with Hassan Hathout saying that its founder, Hassan al-Banna, is “the person who most influenced my life” and that “centuries might roll over before a similar personality is produced.” Maher Hathout was arrested in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood was banned, and released in 1968. Three years later, they moved to Buffalo, New York and went to California to establish the ICSC in 1978.

Hassan Hathout says they sought to begin the “Islamic Movement” in the U.S., a term the Brotherhood uses to describe its ideology. In 1997, he predicted its success because “America needs Islam. If you look objectively you will see that this current civilization harbors in its body the seeds of its own destruction.” The language is very similar to that of a 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood strategy document where it defines its “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.” Another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood document from 1989 from its Financial Committee refers to a person with the last name of Hathout as someone “in the field.”

Maher Hathout has served as a senior adviser to MPAC since its beginning at the ICSC in 1986 and is still a spokesman for the mosque. The ICSC recommends the work of Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a senior Brotherhood cleric that supports terrorism, Hamas and preaches a strategy of “gradualism” towards implementing Sharia Law. It also suggests a book on Islamic law called Fiqh-us-Sunnah authored by Brotherhood member Sayyid Saabiq under the guidance of Hassan al-Banna.